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episode 100.
you believe that's cool 100 episodes
thanks everybody for watching this we
appreciate it and your questions hi
everybody welcome back to ask alicia the
weekly series where you ask me questions
and i answer them maybe first question
this week comes from ahmad junaidi hi
ahmad ahmad says hi alicia what's the
difference between afraid and scared i'm
a little confused thank you okay sure if
you are talking about fear
afraid and scared mean the same thing
when you're using them as adjectives so
i'm afraid and i'm scared mean the same
thing we're talking about our emotions
we're talking about fear
in different situations however these
words can be used in different ways
let's talk about scare first scare can
be used as a verb to scare someone or to
scare something means to cause someone
to feel fear for example
you scared me or you scared the cat so
that means you caused fear in someone
else past tense it's scared as used in
these examples we cannot use afraid in
this way
afraid however can be used in a way
that's scared cannot afraid can be used
in very formal situations like business
situations as an apology for example i'm
afraid i don't have time to meet with
you today or i'm afraid we don't have
that item right now so this afraid
doesn't mean i'm scared it means i'm
very sorry but so i'm very sorry but we
don't have that item in stock right now
or i'm very sorry but i don't have time
to meet with you so i'm afraid is like a
short polite way to say that so these
are the differences between afraid and
scared i hope that this helps you thanks
very much for the question okay let's
move on to your next question next
question comes from
bruno moria hello bruno bruno says hi
alicia can you tell me the difference
between the words commitment and
compromise please okay sure think about
commitment as a promise or as an
agreement so a commitment is something
you agree to with another person or with
a group of people as a verb we say
commit to commit to something so a
commitment is something you agree upon
with other people some examples i made a
commitment to do my best in this job
he's afraid of commitment
so the second example sentence is
actually a common kind of complaint in
romantic relationships he's afraid of
commitment or she's afraid of commitment
you may hear it in situations other than
romantic relationships but it generally
refers to someone who is afraid to enter
into a kind of agreement like a romantic
agreement to date or to be in a
relationship with one person for a long
time so that's the nuance of the second
example there more generally however
commitment usually refers to agreements
and they can be in business situations
let's compare this now to compromise
compromise so a compromise is a
situation in which two sides have
different proposals for something and
they each make changes to those
proposals to arrive at this middle point
this middle point is called a compromise
so as a noun this point is called a
compromise so side a and side b have
different ideas they change their ideas
slightly slightly slightly and find an
agreement so that agreeing point is the
compromise point as a verb it's to
compromise so let's look at some example
sentences with compromise
our team members reached a compromise
after discussing the project
my friends wanted to go bowling but i
wanted to play video games so we
compromised and went to an arcade
so in the second example sentence i've
used compromise as a verb in the past
tense we compromise that means each side
changed the plan just a little bit and
we found this middle solution so in sum
commitment is an agreement a compromise
you can think of as like a type of
agreement in which both sides change
their ideas slightly so i hope that this
helps you thanks for the question okay
let's move on to your next question next
question comes from paterne hello
paterne paterne says hi alicia what is
the difference between supposed to and
meant to in terms of meaning nothing
supposed to and meant to have the same
meaning the only difference here is that
meant to is used in british english and
we don't use meant to in american
english for example i'm supposed to go
to a company event this weekend and i'm
meant to go to a company event this
weekend an american english speaker
would use the first example sentence i'm
supposed to go to an event this weekend
a british english speaker would use the
second sentence i meant to go to a
company event this weekend for me as an
american english speaker the second
example sentence feels a bit unnatural
to say it's not something that we use in
american english but these two sentences
communicate the same idea so if you are
studying american english great i
recommend using supposed to if you're
studying british english great use meant
to it'll sound more natural i hope that
this helps you thanks for the question
okay let's move on to your next question
next question comes from
reuben hi again reuben rubin says hi
alicia is there any difference between
loose and lose i'm also confused with
the words uninterested and disinterested
i think they have the same meaning but
i'm not sure yes great question there
are key differences let's start by
talking about loose and lose loose with
two o's is the opposite of tight so for
example huh my ring is loose or wow my
pants are loose so this means the
opposite of tight something tight is
like under pressure or it's kind of you
can imagine it in like this shape
something that is tight something that
is loose is not that there's not so much
pressure it's easy to move it's flexible
so loose is an adjective
lose on the other hand is a verb which
means to no longer have ownership of
something or to not win something as in
sports so for example i lost my cat in
the forest or i think we're going to
lose the basketball game today so lose
and loose may seem to have similar
pronunciations and similar spellings but
they do have very different meanings
also different parts of speech lose is a
verb and loose is an adjective so keep
these in mind and be careful of your
spellings when using these words
let's move on now to your second point
about the difference between
uninterested and disinterested
in many cases today we use uninterested
and disinterested to mean the same thing
which is having no interest in something
like we just don't care we don't have
positive feelings or negative feelings
it's just there we're very neutral so
many people use these two words to mean
the same thing
however
disinterested can have a couple of other
meanings one of these is unbiased so for
example politicians should make
disinterested decisions so that means
politicians should make decisions
without bias so bias means having an
opinion
in one way or another about something so
a disinterested decision means an
unbiased decision we can use
disinterested in this way we can also
use disinterested to mean no longer
interested in something so something you
at one time were interested in but you
are no longer interested in can be
described as something you are now
disinterested in for example i've become
disinterested in my hobbies
compare this then to a couple of example
sentences that use uninterested i told
my friend about a concert i went to last
week but he was uninterested
we're so tired of having uninterested
people at our events
so please keep in mind as i said many
people use uninterested and
disinterested to mean the same thing
when the meaning is about not having any
emotions or not having any attention
focused on something
if however you want to talk about losing
interest in something or about not being
biased with regard to something use
disinterested so i hope that this helps
you thanks for the question okay let's
move on to your next question next
question comes from cecilia hi cecilia
cecilia says hi alicia i found that
sometimes there is a comma before and
and sometimes not
when should i add a comma before and
thanks okay yes you should add a comma
before and when you are joining two
independent clauses an independent
clause is an idea or phrase that can
stand alone so it doesn't need any extra
information it's a complete idea a
complete thought let's take a look at a
few examples that show different types
of clauses together on saturday i'm
going to the mountains and on sunday i'm
going to the beach
i told my mother i loved her cooking and
i told my father i love his music
i'm tired and hungry
i missed my train and forgot my wallet
so the first two example sentences here
use a comma before and this is because
if we remove the comma and and the two
ideas can be separated with a period and
there's no communication problem the
statements remain the same on saturday
i'm going to the mountains on sunday i'm
going to the beach there's no error
there the second example sentence is
similar i told my mother i love her
cooking i told my dad i love his music
if we remove the comma and and the
sentences are okay because they are
called independent clauses they are
complete ideas they don't need any more
information in the last two example
sentences though we cannot remove and
because the parts that it joins are not
independent so i'm tired and hungry if
we remove and it becomes i'm tired
hungry in the last example sentence i
missed my train and forgot my wallet i
missed my train forgot my wallet that's
not a grammatical sentence
so this is a good way to test whether
your and is connecting independent ideas
or not try removing it from the sentence
if the sentence remains grammatical
perhaps you have an independent clause
and you can use the comma and there this
is one way to use a comma before an and
the other case where you may see a comma
before an and is in the last item in a
list for example i bought bread fruit
and milk
i saw my family friends and neighbors so
before the final item in each of these
lists there's an and and there's a comma
before the and this is what's known as
the serial comma or the oxford comma so
some people choose to use this type of
comma and some people choose not to
there are some good reasons i feel for
using the oxford comma and i'm a person
who believes that this is a good comma
to use because it can help prevent
confusion when you're reading for
example
i need to buy bread fruits and
vegetables and a meat and cheese plate
there are many ands in that sentence
there are three ands in that sentence
and using commas to separate each
individual item helps the reader
understand what they should be looking
for what is one item here a comma helps
us identify those things in another
example we might say this weekend i'm
excited to see my friends beyonce and
justin timberlake so a way to interpret
this sentence without an oxford comma is
that beyonce and justin timberlake are
my friends but they're not actually my
friends the oxford comma helps prevent
this kind of confusion this weekend i'm
excited to see my friends beyonce and
justin timberlake so it sounds like
those are three different things that
are not necessarily related so the
oxford comma helps prevent this kind of
confusion for that reason i'm a big fan
of it the cases where you might see the
oxford comma purposely not used are in
journalism really so in newspapers in
magazines for example those publications
and the style guides that they follow
typically do not advocate or do not
suggest the use of the oxford comma you
will see the oxford comma however in
novels and in short stories and other
things like that so in those cases you
may see it used this is another reason
why you may sometimes see a comma before
an and and you may sometimes not see it
there are a couple of different reasons
so in sum one reason is related to
independent clauses and connecting those
with a conjunction and in this case and
a comma the other is related perhaps to
the use of the oxford comma or the
serial comma so i hope that this helps
you thanks very much for the question
okay that is everything that i have for
this week thank you as always for
sending your questions remember you can
send them to me at englishclass101.com
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much for watching this week's episode of
ask alicia and i will see you again next
week bye bye
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